Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Now Published: Credible Commitment and Congestion Pricing

Mike Manville and I are pleased that our paper "Credible Commitment and Congestion Pricing" is now published in Transportation. Available online at this link (gated). Here is the abstract:

AbstractTransportation analysts frequently assert that congestion pricing’s political obstacles can be overcome through astute use of the toll revenue pricing generates. Such “revenue recycling,” however, implies that the collectors of the toll revenue will not be its final recipients, meaning that any revenue recipient must believe that the revenue collector will honor promises to deliver the money. This raises the potential for credible commitment problems. Promises to spend revenue can solve one political problem, because revenue is an easy benefit to understand, but create another one, because revenue is easy to divert. Revenue recycling may therefore not be a promising way to build political support for congestion pricing. We highlight the role commitment problems have played efforts to implement congestion pricing, using examples from around the world and then focusing on California. Because congestion reduction is a more certain benefit than any particular use of the toll revenue, demonstration projects, rather than revenue promises, will be key to pricing’s political success.

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About Me

David King is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning.His research explores the impact of local
transportation planning on the built environment, public finance, social equity
and accessibility.As part of this
research he has written about the phenomenon of cruising for parking and used
spatial regression techniques to analyze travel behavior.He also studies how public policy influences
the adoption of new technologies to address congestion, energy and
environmental concerns.These issues are
the focus of Professor King’s teaching through his courses covering planning
techniques and methods, transportation and land use planning and transport
policy.